St. Therese of Lisleux

The following is an extract from “St. Therese of Lisleux, the Little Flower of Jesus”

Dear Rev. Father,

Your letter was sent on to me here. The facts concerning the extraordinary cure of my wife are as follows:
She was in indifferent health for nearly three years and on January 24th last she gave birth to a child, which two days later, according to promise, received the name Mary Frances Teresa. However, puerperal fever set in, and finally – it was 2am on the morning of the 27th – three doctors and the priest thought it was all over. She lingered until the forenoon.
We were making, as you know, a novena to the Little Flower and more than once a remark was passed: “She is so busy, I wonder if she will think of poor Donegal!” Evidently she did think of it and she “came down”, as she promised to do and comforted us all.

About eleven o’clock my little Kathleen, a child of four years, who had promised to make her First Communion in honour of Sister Therese if her mother was cured, came into the house with a bunch of most lovely snowdrops. There were exactly six. She said a nun had given them and had told her to take them to father for mamma and mamma would be cured. The flowers were put into water, but nothing was thought of the “nun” until after a time the room, and even the whole house, began to be filled with a strange, sweet perfume. Snowdrops, of course, have no perfume. However, we traced it to the flowers and then investigated the child’s story.
The nun, according to the little one, came down from the skies and put the flowers in her hand, adding the above message for my dying wife. It seems the apparition was dressed in white; the child also noticed the beauty of the face and the hands and how quickly she flew away when she had delivered her message. I may add that there were no nuns in the neighbourhood and no snowdrops either.

Thank God my wife recovered promptly! One of the doctors had certified that it was an incurable case of infectious septicemia, but that she now enjoys better health than she has done for two years. After a most careful enquiry we are all convinced the child’s statement was perfectly correct. The flowers retained their wonderful scent for the space of a week. One of the doctors carried off two of them to a friend who was very ill and they perfumed that house also.

I hope her “visit” to Donegal will make the little saint more loved than ever. What a gracious way she has of doing good upon earth.

Yours sincerely,

Michael McNelis. J. P. April 12th. 1913

Footnote: The lady who was cured was Mary McNelis. This great event took place in the town land of Gortnamuclagh on the Narin/Glenties Road. Kathleen McNelis later became Mrs. Comerford. She died in Malahide, Dublin within the past year.